August 31, 2012

"Breaking Bad" is high on dramatic visual season endings. Last season Gus emerged from the room in the nursing home with his eye dangling. Then he fell to the floor in the corridor and died. So, the anticipation is intense about who will be offed and how in this last episode.

There will be eight more next summer so none of the really important characters can be eliminated. My first bet is the curious earnest Hank will be put to death. Walter is out of his mind so it's possible he suspects that Hank will out him or even kill him. Likely Walter will take Hank for a ride, the way Mike took Jesse. Only Hank won't be coming back to act the hero.

The next probable candidate is Jesse. After all, Walter tried to poison the child in his life. Sensing Jesse's vulnerability right now, Walter might assume that he would cop some heroin. That means either an overdose or poison in it.

A long shot but Ted could get murdered just because he accepted Walter's hard-earned money. That would be fun for Walter. A little recreational killing to bring pleasure in his difficult professional life. Given Walter's growing mean streak, I predict he would remove Ted's neck brace and slowly strangle him.

Oreo celebrates its 100th anniversary. The genius of this enduring brand is that it has managed to create a special relationship with every generation. Baby Boomers like myself feel that we "own" Oreo as much as the children in pre-K who enjoy it at Milk & Cookies time.

Over the years, the versions of Oreo have ranged from classic to double stuff to mint. But the core identity remains the same: Two cookes + filling. Long before "have it your way," Oreo gave permission to consume it intact or to divide it into three parts.

We in communications who deal with branding can learn plenty from Oreo. At the top of the list is to innovate slowly and carefully, always with the end user in mind. Secondly, wholesome can trump cool. And, third, keep the product affordable.

Something horrific happened at the Republican National Convention: The GOP came across as old. In a nation hell-bent on continuing to function like a bunch of youthful tribes, that is a transgression which will not be forgiven.

While they were delivering speeches, a president, who like John F. Kennedy will always keep the image of youth, again used social media to reach out. That was how he won in 2008 and that was how he will win again. This time it was Reddit. The bottom line is that social media, whatever its version, is associated with the voice of a new generation. Clever Apple welcomed live blogging and live tweeting of its product announcements. In branding those social media activities likely resonated more than coverage in the establishment media such as THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Then there was the reality of a doddering old Clint Eastwood. Visually - and we are a visual culture - conservatism will be linked with out of touch old men.

That out of touch theme was reinforced by Ann Romney's telling us about the love in the marriage. Does a nation which has suffered so much since 9/11 care about this supposed personal love story? We would have preferred to hear how she was going to make a difference in the White House.

Moreover, the meme of these difficult times is moving forward. Jeb Bush wants to take us backward with an apologia for Bro George.

His signature raspy voice had gone the way of the sound of an old man. His attempt at simulating a scene from a skit was a narrative which didn't hold together. And that was all which seemed left of a former legend from Hollywood.

August 30, 2012

Again, Barack Obama upstaged whatever the GOP was up to with social media. His participation in Reddit's Ask Me Anything was sheer genius. We were bug-eyed paying attention to the questions asked, the ones he selected to answer, and how he answered them. Meanwhile the fat guy, the stiff money man, and the lovebirdy wife seemed like yesterday's people in Tampa.

Obama's survival instinct might be that he's open to fresh approaches. Maybe that's what differentiates Democrats from the GOP. Both Republican men and the women seem frozen in time. Sarah Palin can't even move on from her lucky run of fame and fortune and put together another act.

Facebook's sin, and it has been regarded as a mortal one, has been that it disappointed investors. There are four more lockout expiration dates to go and by that time the stock price could be in the low single digits.

However, Facebook is not necessarily a dog, the way some of us look at J.C. Penney. For example, although eMarketer lowered its 2012 revenue growth estimate for Facebook to 34% from the year before, that's not chickenfeed. Instead of the $5 billion in revenue it projected for this year, it reduced it to $4.23.

Had the leadership at Facebook conducted itself with decorum and humility, investors might have had tempered expectations. That's exactly why the majority of the most successful corporations of the 20th century were low-key, cautious, and modest. They didn't overpromise and didn't gush, at least not too much, when they hit homeruns.

All us in the promotion business can learn the brutal lesson here not to hype our clients. Instead, we do the intensive foot work of finding out what they are about and then feature points of differentiation. Those we highlight in their own Media Centers and to the external media.

Not for a long time will a nonconformist like Mark Zuckerberg be allowed out to represent a public company. The late Steve Jobs could get away with that because, like John F. Kennedy, his genius was being able to identify who to take on the key organizational jobs and how to make them work hard and be loyal. Zuckerberg lacks that gift.

Here is my recent analysis of The Fall of the House of Zuckerberg for financial information company Motley Fool.

August 29, 2012

For almost four years Brand Palin (Sarah and Bristol) had a good run. Lots of the money was made and fun was had. Now, it seems the brand is dead. Fox News, for example, canceled its interviews with her, reports POLITICO. That's after she wasn't invited to the Republican National Convention.

But, this is the land of rebranding. Clint Eastwood rebranded himself into a serioous director and actor. Hillary Clinton rebranded herself as a shrewd politico in her own right. After the hacking scandal, Rupert Murdoch rebranded himself as a businessman first, lover of newspapers second. News Corporation is splitting into publishing and entertainment.

So, there is every possibility The Palin Girls can reset themselves. They might, for example, attach themselves to the issue of "Corporate Wife," which Fox's Juan Williams shook the world with. The Palin Girls can carve ideological territory about women surviving in harsh environments like Alaska and Haiti where they have to be much more than someone's wife.

The Palin Girls have provided us with much entertainment. Here's wishing they are able to transcend the present trouble to another four year run of fun.

The job of what Fox's Juan Williams calls "the corporate wife" is an important one. Entertaining is a major part of achieving and holding on to success at the top of the food chain. Also, the spouse of a brandname leader nurtures the family, another prerequisite to making it and staying there.

By those standards, Ann Romney has been a dutiful corporate wife. Her husband has done well. So, it's odd that Williams would make a snide remark about the role she played in American capitalism. Perhaps he is unhappy that he had to be the professional who went out there and put together the success and couldn't be a corporate wife.

The brilliant performance art of "the fat guy from Jersey" at the Republican National Convention (RNC) last night likely won't save his state's iconic newspapers. THE NEW YORK POST reports that the Newhouse Company, which owns THE JERSEY JOURNAL and STAR LEDGER, could cut back publication to three times a week. That means that the daily institution of learning about the world through the eyes of the reporters at these papers could end.

This would be a personal tragedy. I grew up in the ethos of the hard-hitting (yes, Chris Christie like) JERSEY JOURNAL, with the STAR LEDGER as a tamer voice in the background. After my education and doing time in the Fortune 500, I returned to the Northeast and developed my own writing style aligned with the raw ethnic tones of Jersey City.

Along the way my much younger sister Anne Murga-Ring had married the former publisher of the JERSEY JOURNAL Scott Ring. Yeah, sort of all in the family. Along the way I also gave up the dream of being a beat reporter on the JERSEY JOURNAL. I wanted to cover the police and the courts. Instead I do that on my syndicated legal blog Law and More.

My heart is with the men and women of Christie's state who manage to put out a daily newspaper. May they land on their feet in their mission to shape the points of view of the very special garden state.

Whether it's strategic planning for a business or endorsing a political candidate, more players are doing that sideways. The direct or linear approach seems so 20th century and, more importantly, not effective.

So, it should be no surprise that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie structured his keynote speech at the RNC to articulate a fresh message with new language for the GOP. He did that instead of endlessly praising the candidate.

Here POLITICO provides a video and highlights. In essence, the theme was hard values like respect versus soft ones like love and popularity. Indirectly this positioned the Democrats as representing those soft values. Therefore, by extension, they couldn't make America great again.

Brilliantly, Christie has seized leadership of the GOP. Whether Romney wins or loses, he has carved out his space or "Blue Ocean Strategy" in national politics. Before this, he demonstrated that he had the charisma. Now he let America know he also has the policy smarts. During the rest of the campaign, he will be the party's number-one asset.